Zentangles with Jane Monk

I've had a thing for zentangles for a long time now - I don't do them very often, but I read a lot of blogs about them and do them every so often.  One blog I really like is Jane Monk's Studio - not only does she do great zentangles, but she's a quilter too.  She is having a giveaway for her birthday month - you can read about it here.

Zentangle

I have a new obsession - Zentangles. Basically, it is like doodling, but with intention. It looks much harder than it is. I made myself a little book, just for my zentangles. It is 6 inches square, made from Strathmore Bristol smooth paper, bound with my bind-it-all. I made it this size so that I could put a CD envelope in the back with an old CD to trace around to make circles. Also in that envelope is a piece of chipboard that I cut into a 4 inch square and rounded the corners. So those are what I use to start my zentangles. I use a pencil to divide my circle or square into sections, and then I put a pattern into each section. I'm using a size 01 Micron pigma pen. It's very relaxing. You can read more about these at the zentangle official website, or do a google search for them. One of my favorite sites is Sandy Bartholomew's blog, Beez in the Belfry. She posts patterns once a week with instructions on how to draw them. And the Zentangle site has a newsletter where they give new patterns. You can subscribe to the newsletters, and all of their old newsletters are archived.

Zentangles

For the first two Zentangles I did, I doodled a random shape, and then divided it up into sections and made patterns in each section.





After that, I traced a CD and divided the circle up. I'm not sure why I never thought to just fill the whole page. You could also leave a space for writing in. I did most of these while we visited our son and daughter-in-law. I'm SO glad we traveled when we did - our whether was perfect. Tonight, on the other hand, it is sleeting!













Anyway, these were fun to do, and really not as hard as they look. You just do one section at a time, and there isn't any right or wrong. You just put patterns into the sections.